


Home is a beginning

by seraphcelene



Category: The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Alternate Ending, Episode: s09e05 What Comes After, Gen, What-If
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-26
Updated: 2018-11-26
Packaged: 2019-08-29 12:52:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 935
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16744351
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/seraphcelene/pseuds/seraphcelene
Summary: Rick Grimes has had his last episode, but what if 9.5 ended the other way ... Spoiled for What Comes After.





	Home is a beginning

 

Daryl goes out first and Carol goes with him. They sweep the bridge, a tiny crew of volunteers ranging behind them, clean-up as much as search and rescue. Methodical, the bodies are checked and sorted, walkers ended and what's left gets burned. Rick is nowhere on the bridge; they check both sides. The riverbanks offer up nothing but mud.

Michonne remains behind the walls. She has to. After the second time she faints, Siddiq runs every test he has available. 

“I'm fine.” Michonne, eyes rimmed red, stares at him, through him. 

They're on the veranda, there is a breeze, and the sky is so blue it hurts to look at it.

Carol, Judith propped on one hip, recognizes the dead eyes, the stony face from so long ago it feels like a completely different lifetime. 

Siddiq doesn't know this Michonne. Only an approximation: frowning, clear-eyed Michonne with a samurai sword. But not this particular Michonne shutdown and feral.

“You're exhausted,” Siddiq says, and grieving, he does not say. “You're also pregnant.”

And that makes her unclench. Surprise widening her eyes and then the tears. She turns half-way around so that Judith can't see.

“Judith,” Carol tugs at a lock of the little girl's hair to get her attention. “Why don't you show Siddiq where the kitchen is. I think there are some chocolate chip cookies down there. Fresh baked this morning.”

Judith studies Carol, her blue eyes flicking back and forth between Carol and Michonne, torn between the promise of the cookies and staying. 

“Mama,” Judith says like a question.

“It's okay,” Michonne whispers. “Go on.”

“Your mama will be right here with me,” Carol reassures and hands Judith to Siddiq.

Siddiq carries Judith out of the room, whispering to her about a stuffed bear in a train station.

“Did you know? Did he?”

Michonne gasps, a tiny hiccup of sound between a sob and laughter. “We talked about it. Didn't try not to.”

Back to Carol, Michonne looks smaller somehow, more frail. Shoulders rolled forward and suddenly Carol realizes how thin she is. Strong, wiry, but small. How had she missed that? And who would see it now that Rick would not. She reaches out, unsure. Hesitant to touch her. Michonne isn't like Maggie or Glenn or Beth. 

Finally, Carol let's her hand rest gently against Michonne's back. She stiffens at first then lets her head fall forward.

“Congratulations,” Carol says, softly.

*

“You have to stay here,” Carol tells Michonne, later, when all Michonne wants is to search the riverbanks with Daryl even though he's been over the area more times than anyone can count. It's not that anyone's worried about her being pregnant. They're not. It's the flatness of her eyes and the sharpness of her blade that puts them all on edge.

Mouth pursued, eyes glazed with tears, Carol frames Michonnes's face with shaking hands. “I know you want to find him, but you can't. You have to stay here. Judith needs you and you are carrying very precious cargo.” 

She makes Michonne promise. As if Michonne walking beyond Alexandria's walls was about more than looking for what might be left of Rick. As if it were about more than losing Andre and then Carl and all the family between them. 

*

Maggie sees him first. The night before she goes back to Hilltop and she can't sleep. Takes a lookout and suddenly he's there in the dark, hovering at the gates. He looks whole except for the blood on one side. In the moonlight, he almost looks alive. She sends for Daryl and Carol, and Carol remembers what Morgan had said about walkers and home. About his wife. 

Rick is there through the night and wanders away with the dawn.

No one wants to tell Michonne, but the next morning they do. 

“It's him,” Maggie says clear and matter-of fact, She knows what this feels like better than any of them. “He's outside the walls. Some part of him still knows that this is home. That you're here. And Judith.”

“Muscle memory,” Carol counters. “Let's not romanticize this. Daryl and I will go out and … and take care of it. Him. We'll handle the situation and then bring his body back.”

Daryl doesn't say anything. Meets Michonne's stonewall gaze and tips his chin up. That night he waits at the gate. Waits for Michonne to come after Judith is asleep.

Carol starts to protest, then nods her head. “I'll go sit with Judith, in case she wakes up. Be careful.”

Daryl goes with Michonne, and Maggie. 

Rick is shuffling toward them when the gate opens. Michonne watches, waits. It's like she's memorizing the reality that has come to past, her gaze eating him up, all the things that he was and is no more. 

Daryl steps forward and Michonne stops him with a hand on his arm. 

“No,” she says softly. “I'll do it.”

In the end, it's quick and efficient. Daryl distracts Rick and Michonne circles around to his back. The katana is sharp and slides easily through the fibrous spot at the base of his skull and up into his brain. He is walking and then he is not.

It's simple and easy and anti-climatic and wrong. Somehow, he deserves more, deserves better. Rick saved them all, but going down like this, without a fight. 

Maggie voices what they all think. “Doesn't seem right, does it.”

Michonne stands above his body, one hand pressed to her still flat belly.

“He was my brother.” Daryl's voice breaks. 

Michonne shakes her head, a small negation. 

“It's not him,” she says. “Not anymore.”


End file.
